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November 443 |
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a ride in a straw-filled wagon or sledge, and the youngsters frolicked in the hay, or coasted.
All met again in the evening around the wide hearth after a substantial supper. Old stories renewed their youth, and personal adventures acquired a more vivid interest in that homely, sympathetic atmosphere, while the cider circled round.
The children parched corn, cracked nuts, and ate apples, already oblivious of the Gargantuan banquet with which they had so recently been regaled.
The national holiday was indeed unique—chosen from religious motives and celebrated in the household among those that loved each other.
TWENTIETH-CENTURY THANKSGIVING DINNER
In the year of grace, 1903, a Thanksgiving dinner was given in New York by a descendant of the Puritans, to twenty-four of her kinsfolk—a dinner which was significant of the increase of luxury in our country and its almost boundless resources.
The hostess had been mindful of Henry Ward Beecher's ideal celebration—"A Thanksgiving dinner represents everything that has grown in the lavish summer and all the largess of autumn to make glad the heart of man."
In the centre of the table was a huge pumpkin, hollowed out, filled and wreathed about with yellow chrysanthemums, at either end a sheaf of ripe wheat, in the centre of which bloomed more chrysanthemums, while horns of plenty, made of very fine straw, were at the four corners.
Out of these, among many vine-leaves in overflowing |
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